May the Princess bow to the Queen
by leviadrache
Summary: When Asaka finds out that she lost memories of something very important, she starts searching for clues. Ren's no help, so together with Yuri, she tries to get back what once was hers. But if she's honest to herself, she really just wants to know what Tokura Misaki once was to her. [spoilers for legion mate]
1. Cogito

It's amazing how easy it is to see through Tokura Misaki.

The things that immediately attract Asaka's attention when she looks at her aren't Misaki's calm behaviour or the softness of her voice, but the sadness in her eyes and the black ribbon on her wrist that just feels really out-of-place – as if it doesn't belong there. Even when she's really sure she hasn't met the calm girl before today, Asaka feels weirdly confident in front of her and it's just too easy to figure her out.

Ren's busy talking to Kai, who just arrived here with his friends. That kid, Kamui, shot Tetsu an angry glare when they came in, but now looks at Tetsu with a certain hesitation and Tetsu, who noticed that, challenges him to a cardfight. The red-haired boy and Kai's blond friend are talking about something in the corner of the shop. Misaki's the only one who hasn't said a word yet. She simply put an apron on as soon as she came in and sat down on the chair behind the counter.

Thinking about it, Asaka isn't sure why she knows the other girls name or why it's so tempting to tease her about the serious and sad look on her face to offer some distraction. The urge to ask about that ribbon, to tear it from Misaki's wrist, because it feels so wrong, because it shouldn't be there, is huge, too, and Asaka's pretty sure she's worked too long in this shop.

Still –

"Is there something wrong on my face? You're staring." Misaki says, somehow annoyed. That tone in her voice is the first thing about her that really is familiar to Asaka and frankly, it's rather nice to hear it again. (Again, even when she's 100% sure, she has never ever talked to Tokura Misaki in her whole life.) It's a rather embarrassing situation, but instead of blushing, Asaka smirks.

"You're annoying." Misaki calmly states as she pulls out her deck and looks at her cards.

"What a rude thing to say to the person that watched the store for you." Something about this feels really nice and easy, as if they already had this conversation a billion times before. It's not hard to counter Misaki's remark and she knows that neither of them actually means what they say. It's just the casual kind of teasing between two rivals –

Rivals? A ridiculous thought. How should that little shop girl be the rival of Team AL4's assassin?

Misaki rolls her eyes. "You're as childish as ever." Then, she bites her lips, but it's already too late. Curiously, Asaka leans over the counter, closer to Misaki, catching every slight movement and flinch and change in her expression.

"As ever?" Asaka laughs. "What are we? Star-crossed lovers from an other life who are fated to meet again here, in this cute little shop? You've got to be kidding."

But there's not a slightest bit of joking in Asaka's voice as she speaks, no hint of their teasing from earlier. For once it seems like Misaki has the upper hand, as if she knows something Asaka doesn't and while it does bother her, there's more to it. Why does it, with every passing second, feel more and more like they know each other? Still leaning on the counter, Asaka finds her face closer to Misaki's than she remembers, but she doesn't back away.

Why does Misaki avoid her gaze?

"Just tell me, what we are?"

"Asaka, we're leaving!" Ren's suddenly directly behind her and this time, she does start helplessly blushing.

"Ahh, Ren-sama, don't tell me you've listened all the time?" A small, but distance smile appears on Misaki's face, as if she knows something Asaka doesn't.

Such an annoying girl.

Before Asaka can say something, Ren grabs her wrist, immediately silencing her. He lets go of it when they're already out of the shop and almost at the Foo Fighter HQ.

Asaka doesn't forget about Misaki, though.

* * *

It's almost a week later, when Asaka leaves Fukuhara after their Cardfight! club meeting and sees Misaki again. Even this time, it's not hard to tell how nervous Misaki is. Even from this far away, it's easy to tell in the way she crosses her arms and bites her lips and plays with the ribbon on her wrist. As Asaka gets closer to her, she finds out that Misaki obviously waits for her.

"Hey." Asaka starts when she stands in front of Misaki, slightly bowing. "Is there something I can do for Your Highness today?"

"There's something," Misaki's fingers leave the ribbon and play with the red bow around her neck. "Something I wanted to tell you."

"Oh, there's something you want to tell my humble self. I'm really flattered." Misaki rolls her eyes and Asaka tries to bite back a smile. This does feel like something familiar.

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"It's hard to explain."

"Forming words is really easy, even you should be able to do that. Come on, you don't look that stupid to me." Once again, Misaki rolls her eyes and sighs, but this time, Asaka sees a smile cross her features and that's nice.

So, Misaki gestures Asaka to follow her as she starts explaining. A really imaginative story about the world forgetting a boy and how Misaki and her friends are trying to get him back. Misaki tells her how she already knows Asaka, how they met at the Nationals once, how Asaka beat her (Which is the most realistic part of the story, but even then, it's odd how she can practically hear the crowds cheering for her, like a memory from a previous life, something that happened to another Narumi Asaka).

When they reach a small café at the centre of the town, Asaka lets herself fall on a chair, trying to properly process everything Misaki told her. Meanwhile, Misaki orders two coffees for both of them, and then pulls out her deck like yesterday, but there's something strange about it.

"Wait, don't you run an Oracle Think Tank deck?"

"Yeah, I changed to Genesis after the Asia Circuit."

"Listening to our advice, aren't you?"

Asaka slaps her hand in front of her mouth.

"I don't, I mean, it's not like, you know-"

Misaki abruptly leans over to her. "So there's at least something you remember."

...

The waiter brings their coffee and Misaki wants to pay, but Asaka's faster and hands him a bunch of money, waving him off.

...

"Maybe I, um, I only remember some aspects, short pieces. Things that don't fit to my other memories." Asaka begins again. "It's kind of... weird."

Misaki tightly grabs her wrist. "No, it's okay, I felt the same. You'll remember eventually."

"You know," Asaka grins, when Misaki slowly tries to let go of her wrist, but she clings to Misaki's hand. "There's no need to make up such a story, when you want to go out with me and hold my hand."

Immediately, Misaki pulls her hand away, slightly blushing. "That's not true!"

"'I felt the same,'" Asaka dramatically quotes and Misaki crosses her arms, looking out of the window. "That's pretty adorable, you know."

* * *

"Did you have fun with Misakki~?" Ren greats her, standing in front of the door in an apron. She can smell vegetables cooking in the kitchen, hoping Ren's cooking the delicious soup he cooked on the resort island.

They visited a resort island together?

Images of herself and Ren at the blue sea flow through her mind. Tetsu and that Kai Toshiki are there, too, and a bunch of other people - Misaki and her friends. She remembers how she and Ren looked for a third person to play volleyball with. Kai rejected them, but Misaki accepted the invitation.

She holds her aching head.

"Asaka, you okay?" She hears Ren's worried voice and straightens her posture again. _Letting him see you this way is embarrassing. Get a hold of yourself. You want to be strong, right?_

"I'm all right," she smiles and goes to the kitchen with Ren. When she sits down on one of the chairs, Ren hands her a glass of water and sits down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, red eyes meeting her blue ones.

"Did Misaki say something to you?" She shakes her head, but when the expression on Ren's face softens in relief, she nods. She can't lie to him, really. He sighs. "So, you know what happened. To Aichi-kun, I mean." She nods again and then shakes her head.

"That boy who went missing. Not really, I mean, no one knows where he is, right?"

"Yeah, no one knows," Ren repeats and while he still looks at her, it's easy to see he's lost in his thought somewhere else. "So, you remember everything that happened."

"Not everything. Bits and pieces slowly come back, but I'm not sure about most of it," she bites her lips. "Isn't this... Don't these things only happen in stories?"

Ren shakes his head, lifts his hand from her shoulder as if he wants to touch her face, to reassure her and tell her things will be all right, but then seems to stop himself as he gets up and turns to the food he cooks. (Maybe it's just Asaka's imagination, her hoping for things that will never happen.)

"Tell Tetsu dinner's ready soon."

* * *

On the next day, she meets Yuri. She stands on the same spot Misaki stood yesterday, but unlike her, Yuri actually called Asaka before she came. The both of them often meet each other for cardfights . After their some fights inside the Foo Fighter HQ, Yuri casually mentions how she has trouble to remember certain things in her past and Asaka shrugs. Yuri laughs and says she's probably imagining things.

"But it's really weird, though. Koutei feels something similar and on top of that all, he met two people at the airport who said they know him. Hmm, what were their names again... I think the girl's name is Tokura Misaki. Does that name ring any bells?"

"Kind of," Asaka starts.

She hesitantly tells Yuri everything she knows and Yuri keeps nodding, slowly processing Asaka's words. They agree to start investigating this topic, though the only person who knows something about this and who would help them is Ren, but after that evening, neither Asaka or him mentioned this topic. Not that Asaka's fine with these things remaining unsaid and ignored, she just doesn't know how to bring them up again, when she's not even sure why everyone forgot about them.

Something about Misaki makes her feel very uncomfortable and unhappy and Asaka would love to know more about their past relationship and the things that were between them, but whenever she sees a new image in her mind, another memory of her forgotten past, it feels like Asaka loses a part of her current self. As if she and the other Asaka don't belong together.

To get her old memories back, it seems like she has to lose her current self and she keeps telling herself she isn't afraid and has to be strong, but lying to the voices in your head is _hard_.

"You all right, Asaka?" Ren asks sweetly on the third evening after she and Yuri decided to find some clues about what happened to their memories. "You look tired."

He's suddenly really close to her on the couch and his red hair falls on her shoulder. Asaka backs away in surprise, shaking her head. "Everything's fine, Ren-sama."

"You sure?" All of the previous sweetness in his voice is gone as he brings his own face closer to hers, so close their noses are about to touch and she's way too aware of him feeling her breathing. "Don't tell me it's still about Aichi-kun. You're also searching for him, aren't you."

A part of her wants to question the 'also', but she knows who Ren talks about. Of cause, Kai is always involved in everything, somehow. Why can't he, just for once, stop being annoying?

"You didn't tell me what happened, so I wanted to find it out on my own." She turns her head away, making Ren back away in process, and then crosses her arms. "I got a bit curious."

"Asaka... there's something I want to show you."

He stands up, looking at Asaka expectantly and in the same moment, she starts feeling sorry for what she said. "I'm sorry for being impolite, Ren-sama."

But he only shakes his head. "No need to be. I should be sorry," he holds out his hand. "Will you forgive me for what I did?" She senses there's a greater meaning to those careful words. Was there something Ren tried to hide? Something about their past and that kid named Aichi?

She shoves her questions into a deep corner of her mind as she takes Ren's hand. They take the elevator down and after a couple of moments in pure silence, Ren leans against the wall. "I'm not allowed to show this to anyone, or even talk about this, but the place we're going to is the portal. The portal that leads to Aichi-kun's sanctuary."

"Aichi's sanctuary?"

"Yeah, it... it's hard to explain." Ren rubs the back of his head. "Though, I still think you should know about this."

"Then why didn't you tell me earlier?" She doesn't want to seem ungrateful. When she asks this question, it's because she means it in some very honest way and not to make Ren feel uncomfortable. After all, she tries to be there for him and he can tell her everything that's on his mind.

"I thought you wouldn't care about these things."

"I care about everything that matters to you." It takes her a second to realize the exact meaning of what she said. "Excuse me, I, um, Ren-sama, I-"

"It's okay," he laughs. "I know what you mean. Somehow, I can exactly understand how you feel."

When they get out of the elevator, he leads her to three white pillars that are in front of the wall. She raises an eyebrow, but when he places a hand on the middle one, the wall fades away and reveals something that reminds her of one of these old Greek temples.

"This is where we have to leave each other." A certain sadness stains Ren's voice, that sounds less worried about Asaka and more jealous. She doesn't ask why Ren can't come with her or what's behind this portal that leads her to such an ancient looking place. She only nods, says 'thank you' and steps through the portal without too much fuss.

On the other side, she finds herself surrounded pillars similar to the ones she saw before. It's not a real room, so she can see what's outside the temple. Instead of landscapes and the light blue sky, she finds herself surrounded by countless stars and the darkest night she's seen. She thinks she's alone in this temple and gasps when she realizes that what she sees between the starts and mistook for the moon, actually is earth.

"Didn't expect you to come here."

Someone laughs. A tall blonde haired girl suddenly appears in front of her – Kourin, the third member of that idol group. Asaka remembers her being on the same school as Misaki. Putting a hand on her hip, a smirk flashes across Kourin's face. "You'll have to fight me, if you want to go any further."

"Well then, sorry for bursting in, Princess. But don't think I'll go easy on you because of your pretty face." Asaka bows. "It's the Princess' duty to bow in front of the Queen after all."


	2. Ergo sum

"Asaka went _where_?"

Yuri crosses her arms, while Ren still doesn't seem to care about her question at all. He lays his head on the table and yawns. "It's getting late, Yuu-chan. Don't you want to go home?"

Yuri frowns, then shrugs. It really is getting late, but she promised to meet Asaka at Fukuhara and waited there for almost an hour, calling the other girl a few times. Asaka didn't call her back and so Yuri decided to search for her at the Foo Fighter HQ.

And, well, Yuri knows that it's unusual for Asaka to not be either training or with Ren at this time, but there is Ren, obviously not worried about Asaka at all, so maybe her friend really is okay. Yuri still wants to get a proper response though.

"Answer my questions. Now."

"My, my, you're so demanding, Yuu-chan." He flashes a big, childish smile and giggles, almost taking away the last bits of Yuri's patience, but then he sighs, to her surprise. Suddenly, he looks a lot more like his age, more serious and literally older, concern and tiredness covering his features. "I'd tell you, but I can't. You don't trust me and I understand that, but you should trust Asaka. If it's her, I know she'll be all right."

* * *

This fight feels so odd.

It's weird to fight for something she can't understand yet. Usually, she never fights without a certain goal, without a voice in her head that tells her what to do (get stronger, impress Ren, win this tournament), but this is different. She doesn't know what she'll gain if she wins, only knows that she can't lose, not here, not to this person.

There's something about this situation, about Kourin, that makes her stomach hurt and she tightens the grip on her deck. She wants to win.

It's funny in some way, really. She's not sure how she got here, not sure what here even is, not sure what _being_ here means, but she knows she'll win this fight. Kourin laughs.

"You're quite interesting. I didn't expect someone like you to come here without a reason."

_Without a reason?_

'I have plentyof reasons', she wants to shout back, because hearing that she has no reason to be here makes her actions sound so meaningless and empty. She does have a reason to be here and she knows it, but there's, well, there's this truth to Kourin's words, too. A kind of truth that makes her head hurt by just thinking about it and, added to the pain in her stomach, she can feel how it gets harder and harder to stay focused. How long has she already been here?

_Don't dwell on it, keep fighting!_

Looking at Kourin gets harder and the fight is hard and her opponent stronger than expected. But she keeps going, bites her lips and fights back. Her chest feels tight and it's getting weird to breath, odd to stand and she wonders what she's doing here.

Fighting a stranger to get information about something that might not even exist.

Ridiculous.

But she keeps going.

Attacks, checks for triggers, ends her turn, guards against Kourin's attacks.

"You're not bad, but you're fate's already decided. Aichi doesn't want to be saved." Kourin says calmly, like one would tell a child that two plus two makes four. Like it's a basic truth.

"You're overestimating yourself. I won't lose."

With the fight going on, the tension slowly leaves her body. She shakes her head, trying to shake away her worries and doubts with that. She'll win, because the result is all that matters. That's what she learned after countless fights to be in the best Foo Fighter team. If she wants to get something, it doesn't matter how she fights or how hard she works as long as the results aren't good enough. There's no way she'll lose ever again. It's what she swore to herself.

"So now, it's time to answer my questions and stop those silly ga–"

– she flinches. Her head, stomach and chest hurt again, even worse than before and she can't move. Trying to breath, it takes all the energy in her body to keep standing. Her vision is getting blurrier and –

– she feels calm –

– and satisfied –

– and really strange –

Asaka wakes up in her room with way too many pillows under her head and a head resting on her knees. Misaki sits on one of the chairs next to her bed, but apparently fell asleep and now, her upper body's lying on Asaka's legs and her bed.

"Ah, your awake now, Asaka." She winces at that voice. Ren sits on the second chair next to her bed, but gets up to touch her forehead. "Oh, your head's still warm. Hope you're not getting ill."

"Ren-sama, I..." she sits up and tries to look more, um, presentable and, well, less weak. She has to be strong after all. "I mean, er, what happened?"

"Oh, nothing interesting. Tetsu didn't want to fight me, so it was pretty boring while you were asleep."

"Ehm, that's not-"

"Ah," Ren snaps his fingers, "you mean before that. Well, I guess Kourin wasn't too happy about you getting to the sanctuary, so she used that sleeping gas. She probably would have poisoned you if it wasn't for Aichi's will." He gestures with his hands a bit to emphasise the meaning of his words and almost hits Asaka by doing that, not that she minds.

"What's with her?" She points to Misaki, who's still taking a nap on her knees. It's starting to get slightly uncomfortable, since Asaka isn't used to being used as a pillow. Of cause, she wouldn't mind using other people as her pillows, but being used as pillow is not something people can do without asking. Especially people who don't even have the decency to stay awake.

"She didn't leave your side ever since you came back. Though I don't know why." Ren's eyes wander from Asaka to Misaki and back. He stands up. "I still got some things to do. It's still not time for dinner, but since your awake now, I leave the rest to you." He turned around to leave, but when he says the rest, he points at Misaki over his shoulder with his thumb. "Don't tell her about the way I'm involved in this."

"Leave it to me!" Asaka exclaims proudly, glad that Ren trusts her enough to give her such important information and believing she'll keep it.

When he's outside, Asaka shakes her knees until the head on them moves as Misaki stirs.

"It's time for her Highness to wake up."

Misaki's sleepy eyes stare at Asaka as she sits up and only then Asaka realizes something she should have remembered earlier. Even with lost memories, this is just too important to forget. For a few seconds, Asaka actually feels ashamed for forgetting. Then she says it. Says something she really needs to tell Misaki.

"Your hair looks awful."

"Same goes for you." Misaki sighs. She really loves doing that, doesn't she. "Guess that's what I get for worrying about you."

"I don't need you to worry about me."

"Well, it's not like I do it for fun."

"Then stop."

Misaki bites her lips, as if she seriously considers it for a moment, before she raises her voice again. "Only when you promise to stop doing stupid and reckless things."

"Hey, I'm not promising anything. It's not like you're my wife."

"It's not like any of this was your business to begin with."

Asaka shakes her head and leans a bit closer to Misaki, smiling. "You're a really bad liar you know."

She still smiles while she gets closer and closer to Misaki. The other girl raises an eyebrow in question, but when Asaka puts her hand on Misaki's shoulder and puts their lips onto each other, Misaki sighs. At first, she feels Misaki tense, but then the other girl seems to relax and holds the back of Asaka's head as she pushes their lips together more firmly. Asaka grabs Misaki's chin when she pulls away and brings them together again and when Misaki sighs once more, she laughs.

The way Misaki reacts, the way Asaka feels her lips form a smile against hers makes her wonder if they did that before. She really hopes they have.

* * *

It's a lie to say Asaka doesn't feel at least a little relieved the next days. Ren's constantly around her to care about all her needs as if to make sure she won't do anything dangerous again. She doesn't think too much about what to do, though she has absolutely no idea what to do from this point onwards.

She doesn't even know if she wants to do anything at all.

It's fun when Misaki visits her again. She sits on her bed, when the other girl enters the room, playing video games. She hasn't had time to play for long time and the moment she started the game, everything seemed confusing and she couldn't remember the story line or the strategy she used to beat enemies, but she's starting to get a hang on it again.

They talk about random things. She doesn't even deem it necessary to look at Misaki and instead keeps playing her video game. Misaki tells her about customers in the shop and things that happened to her at school today, but keeps it simple and short. It doesn't take much time until she's done and silence is back between them.

"Three minutes fifty-six."

"Huh."

"The amount of time you managed to talk. Approximately three minutes and fifty-six seconds." Asaka points at the clock. "I checked the time when you started, just because I was curious. But you disappointed me. I thought you'd last longer."

Misaki starts to protest, something about her not being here for Asaka's entertainment (she really is though), but she's interrupted by the ringtone of her mobile.

It's Yuri and she ends up inviting Asaka and Misaki over to her place this weekend. When they arrive there a fewdays later, they find the older girl in front of the door, waving with the keys of her car.

"I thought we could visit this card shop in my town. The one where Gai and I started playing Vanguard and met Koutei."

The drive is longer than expected, or at least it seems like that, because Misaki doesn't talk that much and as if to make up for that, Yuri talks even more, which leaves Asaka to answer her, although she just really needs some time to _think_.

Think about what she wants to do, what they should do, if they should do anything at all, and, well, Yuri is sort of distracting. She's glad when they reach their destination. Jumping out of her seat, probably a little too quickly, she gets out of the car with the intention to walk to the card shop in front of them, but then decides for something else.

She turns around and bows as she opens the door to the back seat of the car where Misaki's sitting.

"Milady."

Misaki rolls her eyes, but gets out through the door Asaka opened anyway. Naturally, Asaka politely closes the door after Misaki's outside and she sees Yuri giving her a thumbs up from the other side of the car. Misaki fortunately doesn't notice. Almost laughing, Asaka offers Misaki her arm. To her surprise, Misaki actually takes it and smiles back at her.

"Hey, I'm feeling a little left out over here," Yuri exclaims, waving with her arms as if to cause a scene. Asaka stretches her tongue out at Yuri and walks towards the shop in front of them, Misaki tagging along with her.

Walking directly next to each other, it's hard to observe the expression Misaki's making, but Asaka know that it's probably very amusing without having to see it. She wonders if Misaki would mind Ren being here and decides to remember asking Misaki later.

"It's good to see that you actually did something about your hair today." Misaki says, somehow in a teasing way, but also not really. Though there's no heat to the statement, Asaka's not sure if Misaki's trying to start a fight. (She hopes Misaki is.)

"I'm glad Your Highness approves the way I look."

"Oh, don't worry, I don't." Definitely trying to start a fight.

"Adorable," Asaka comments, moving the arm Misaki holds to make her let go of it. Then she grabs her hand.

"What's so adorable?"

"You." She would have loved to see Misaki's reaction, hopefully some red colour spreading on her face, but the other girl simply turns her head away to look at the floor, making it impossible for Asaka to see the expression on her face. She does feel Misaki tightening her grip on Asaka's hand though.

Inside the building, Yuri excitedly shows them around in the small shop, pointing at things and people. When she looks at the both of them again, she frowns at their still intertwined fingers. Asaka almost lets go of Misaki's hand the moment she sees the look on Yuri's face, but then Yuri shakes her head, taking Misaki's other hand.

"I'm not sure why I wanted to take you to this place, but I'm glad we're here. Somehow, I happen to like spending time with the both of you."

She pulls them towards the small storing room of the store. Misaki protests they can't just enter this part of the shop as customers, but Yuri shrugs, saying that she knows the owner of the shop and that it's no fun without taking risks.

It's as if Asaka overheard them having this kind of conversation before, but she shoves her thoughts away as she shuts the door behind them. It's dark in here, but when Yuri turns the light on, Asaka gasps at the sight in front of them.

Three white pillars in the middle of various boxes. They look exactly like the ones in the Foo Fighter HQ.

"Is there something wrong, Asaka?" By now, they've already let go of each others hands and Yuri shoots her a confused look.

"What's, uhm, why are these pillars here?"

Yuri shrugs. "Two of Koutei's friends runs this shop. They're a history nerds, just like him, so that's probably the reason."

"So they've _always_ been there?" Asaka asks, just to be really sure.

"Hmm, I think so... but I'm not sure. I haven't been here for a long time." Yuri rubs the back of her hand against her forehead and Asaka sees Misaki frown.

"They look like the entrance to the place where they're keeping Aichi."

"Kourin said Aichi doesn't want to be saved." She's not sure why she says this, but she can't stop herself. "Maybe he wants to be left alone."

If she's honest to herself, she really doesn't want to keep searching for Aichi. After all, everything she wanted is right here already. Yuri is there and so is Misaki and her memories still are fuzzy and weird, but she's oddly content with that.

Misaki inspects the pillars, while Asaka keeps standing where she is. She doesn't notice that Yuri looks at her until Misaki's done inspecting the pillars.

"Have you seen those pillars before?" Yuri suddenly asks. Aware of the two pairs of eyes focused on her, Asaka licks her lower lip, thinking.

"I... well, the last time, I used a portal that looked like this to get to Aichi's place." She regrets saying this and she hates herself for feeling this way. Misaki's eyes lighten up in the hope of having found another trace to find her lost friend, but all Asaka really wants is to get out of here.

"How did you do it?" Misaki asks.

"Uhm, I," she remembers how Ren touched the middle pillar, remembers that Ren doesn't want her to tell anybody else about him being involved in this and gets so _torn_. She wants to support and help her friends, she really does, but she also feels like she could lose her friends if she lets them search any longer. 'And that Aichi kid doesn't want to get saved anyway,' she keeps telling herself. Still –

"You just put your hand on the middle pillar and then a portal appears."

Misaki smiles, and puts her hand on the middle pillar, exactly like Ren did.

Nothing happens. Even after Misaki repeats the action several times, nothing happens and Asaka exhales in relief. Ren probably did something else,something Asaka didn't notice, but that's good. She wouldn't have to lie to Misaki when she'll say that this is everything she knows about opening the portal-

"It's not working." Misaki finally says.

"Stating the obvious, huh?"

"I'm not–"

"Oh, you are."

"Not now," Yuri interrupts them. "We should just try something else to find this boy you're searching for."

"But first of all, I'm really hungry~" Asaka purrs, using her best sing-song voice. As if to prove her point, Yuri's stomach growls.

"Me too."

Misaki looks from Asaka at Yuri and then back at Yuri. She raises and eyebrow and Asaka's hearts skips a beat. She wonders if Misaki knows what she's thinking. To her relief, Misaki just shrugs in the end and follows them as they leave the card shop.

While they did end up deciding to do something, decide to search for this boy later, Asaka's happy when they leave the shop. She sees a small but confident smile growing on Misaki's face, sees the carefree and happy look on Yuri's face and –

Asaka is glad to just be here, to be here with them. Walking in the middle of the two of them, it's impossible her to not feel strong. She knows that they can do everything when they're together.

A part of her wants to prove this point, to do something dangerous to test out their limits. But for the most part, she just wants to be with the two of them without having to worry about strange, supernatural affairs.

What's the point of saving Sendou Aichi anyway?


End file.
